Six Times Helga Dahl Loved
by Lavinia Swire
Summary: And one time she didn't have the chance. Seven drabbles from different points in Helga's life.


**I have a confession to make: I love the Fabrizio/Helga story at least as much as the Jack/Rose one - I barely knew it existed until I watched the deleted scenes, but when I finally did I couldn't believe they had been removed from the film. There are various reasons for my shipping, which I won't go into here, but I truly love Fabrizio and Helga both as individuals and as a couple. The idea for the layout originally comes from a challenge on the awesome Downton Abbey Discussion Forum. Hope you enjoy reading!**

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><p><strong>Six times Helga Dahl loved…<strong>

**I Platonic love**

Her mother is protective and strict, it's true, but Erika Dahl only wants the best for her daughter, and Helga understands. She expects she will be the same one day, when she has children of her own (in that distant fairy-tale land of 'when I grow up'). Her mother is like that, her grandmother too. It runs in the family like an echo flowing back. 'I'm doing this for you; you'll thank me one day. It's because I love you, Helga.'

When Helga was a little younger, she resented it. But she understands now, when she sees the grey hairs framing her mother's face or is startled by the lines edged around her mouth. They must have been there before, but Helga never saw them.

Helga's father works and her mother stays at home. More echoes, in the voice of her mother and grandmother before her. 'This is your place, Helga. It will be your life one day.'

_I am all she has. _

She loves her mother. And with every order, every "Come here, Helga," or "Stop that at once," Helga knows that her mother is telling her that she loves her too.

**II First love**

Steffen Jakobsen pulls at Helga's plaits and flicks rolled-up pieces of paper at her from his desk behind her, laughing when she tosses her hair and turns away.

Her mother says he does it because he likes her. She says it with a pinched-up mouth and Helga knows she hates the idea. Her friends tell her the same thing, giggling.

When Steffen takes her hand one afternoon after school there's a light fluttering in Helga's stomach, and it's nice enough for her to let him carry on instead of slapping him around the face for taking advantage. She lets him kiss her later and that's nice enough as well. It doesn't make her see sparks behind her eyelids as it's supposed to, but it's warm and pleasant, and she really does like Steffen when he's like this, when he's shyer than he normally is, when he tells her that she's pretty.

She finishes school that summer and doesn't see Steffen again. He moves away.

It wasn't really love, she tells herself. She has real love, like her parents have, to look forward to yet. Although she still can't help wondering.

**III Intense love**

Her parents talk about it a lot when they think she can't hear.

Normally she would be furious, in her quiet way, about being treated like a child. How ridiculous to have to pretend to be asleep while her parents discuss things quietly in the other room. But she's far too excited about the prospect to be angry, let alone to sleep. She presses her face into the pillow, desperately trying not to eavesdrop but not quite able to help herself.

She knows the streets of America aren't paved with gold, not really, but it's the land of opportunity and hope and all the other clichés that her mother reiterates.

"It would be good for Helga."

When she finally sleeps, she dreams of it. The buildings that touch the sky, the wide streets, the crowds of people. The statue that she's seen pictures of. Lady Liberty welcoming everyone who cares to come with open arms.

Helga loves America without ever seeing her face.

**IV Romantic love**

She doesn't know the steps but it doesn't matter.

"It is okay if I put my hand here? It is okay?"

Helga beams in assent at Fabrizio and silently thanks God that her parents have both gone back to their cabin. She's had a beer or two, which is far more than she usually drinks, and the dancing is so exciting and free that she can't help laughing out loud.

Then Fabrizio climbs onto the table and helps her up after him, and they are whirling round faster and faster.

Helga isn't sure if it's the beer or the dancing or something else entirely that's making her head spin.

Whatever it is, she can't stop smiling.

**V One-sided love**

Amund Dahl is not a cruel father, of course not. He isn't heartless or violent; he provides for his family. Helga wouldn't expect him to be demonstrative; that isn't his way. He is used to giving orders and getting them followed, that is all, not messing about with abstract phrases and soft words.

"Go with your mother," he orders her, and Helga, being used to doing what she is told, does so without question. Not that he would hear her if she did choose to argue back; the noise of people around them, shouting and crying, would drown out anything.

"Amund!" her mother sob-whispers, clinging to his arm. He disentangles her gently, though his voice is abrupt.

"Go now, Erika. It is not a request. You must get on a lifeboat at once." He doesn't bother with the spiel of the other husbands who are consoling their wives, telling them that they'll meet them later on.

Helga is too busy supporting her mother and elbowing her way through the crowds to look back at her father.

He never said that he loved her, but then neither did she.

Perhaps it's a good thing that he didn't after all. It would have turned things further upside down even as the deck dropped away beneath her feet. It would have told her more clearly than anything else, than the cold and the blackness of the water and the slope of the floor, that tonight they were both going to die and there was nothing they could do.

**VI Tragic love**

Everybody loves the Titanic, and Helga is no exception.

On the first day of the voyage she had been too worried about getting seasick to be concerned with anything else, but the ship was an excellent distraction. Once she had confirmed that she was not one of those unfortunate enough to be confined to her bunk, she had set out to explore with relish the parts of the ship that she was allowed to enter. How could anyone not love something that was so strong and new, yet so beautiful?

Even as water floods over the deck on that last night, sweeping through the windows and surging down the corridors beneath her feet, it is beautiful. Even as the ship rises and breaks and rises again. An enormous hulk of metal lifting up out of the water.

Even as it sinks it is still beautiful, and Helga almost weeps for it.

…**and one time she didn't have the chance**

**VII True love**

On the early morning of the 15th April 1912, Helga Dahl becomes a statistic.

There will never be a wedding announcement blasting in newsprint that Miss Helga Dahl became Mrs Fabrizio De Rossi the previous Saturday. There will never be a white dress, or a wedding feast that is scrimped and saved for cent by cent. Maria De Rossi will never make the arduous trip over to America to examine her new daughter-in-law with a ferocious eye. There will never be a cramped little house in New York full of food smells and children wailing and the sound of Fabrizio swearing in Italian to save the ears of his wife.

Helga's body is never found.

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><p><strong>Please review - I'd really like to know what you think of my darling Helga here!<strong>


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